


no grave can hold my body down

by strugglematch (bro)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Dinosaur Cycle, Starblaster Verse, Stolen Century arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 04:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13733667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bro/pseuds/strugglematch
Summary: sometimes you just gotta run away and pet some dogs. a starblaster verse fic for my polybirds server.





	no grave can hold my body down

**Author's Note:**

> so............ for context, because i'm sure some of you reading this AREN'T from my polybirds server.
> 
> we did an ark cycle. dinosaurs. it's great. everyone was fighting, magnus decided to go off on his own to find the light and himself. he met some dogs.
> 
> long story short: he's still team big dog at heart. team BIG dog.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he’s a good thirty-minute walk away from where he’d left Davenport behind.

 

When he does, it burns—not just from the literal tears on his cheeks, but the shame of what he’s done, willingly isolating himself like this.

 

But it’s something he must do, or at least he thinks so – he has to do this to learn who he is. He has to stop living for others, has to figure out how to live as himself first.

                                                                                                                                                                           

He has to learn how to live when his family is fighting. When his partners are fighting.

 

He just—he has so much to figure out. So much to learn.

 

* * *

 

 

It hurts, hearing Davenport’s voice over the comms later, once he’s even deeper into the jungle.

 

Hearing him call for the rest of the crew, explaining that they needed to get back immediately. He thinks about how Taako and Lup are going to react, how Lucretia, who’d already lost so much, was likely going to shut down.

 

He wonders if Barry and Merle will panic, thinking they could have done more.

 

When he settles in for the night that first night, it’s silent except for the sound of the crackling fire in front of him as he cooks his meals.

 

It’s silent until he hears  _Lucretia_  over the stone in his pocket, and then he’s shaking with quiet sobs. He has to find the light.

 

He has to.

 

* * *

 

Magnus spends the first week of his journey just… traveling. Putting as much distance between himself and the ocean as possible.

 

He cuts through the jungles, avoiding the larger dinosaurs until he thinks he can handle them – which sure as hell isn’t going to be during this first week.

 

In the back of his mind, he wonders if there’s any sort of wolves on this planet. Or if their mammalian biology makes their survival impossible here on such a brutal planet.

 

He gets his answer during the second week he’s out – when he sees a pack of wolves chasing down what looks to be a prehistoric herd of elk.

 

He especially gets his answer that night, when a curious wolf from that very pack creeps towards him at his camp he’d made that night.

 

It’s sandy furred, with dark eyes, and when Magnus tosses a chunk of raw meat its way from his meal that night, it greedily snatches it up, then sits down as if asking for more.

 

It’s so much like being at home with his dogs that it almost hurts – and so he keeps feeding it chunks of his dinner for the night until it eventually leaves, and he climbs inside his makeshift tent, exhausted yet oddly satisfied.

 

* * *

 

 

The next day is similar enough to the one before -- a day spend exploring, attempting to find the light. He's starting to lose faith he'd ever find it, but then again, he's alone out here.

 

Alone out in the wilderness, and while he's getting stronger from the constant exploration, it's certainly not ideal.

 

That night, though, that sandy furred wolf comes back. And alongside him are two larger, silver furred wolves.

 

He raises his brows at the sandy one, as if to ask about his friends, but in the end his heart wins out, and he tosses chunks of meat in their direction again.

 

He thinks back to the tiny dinosaur he'd befriended earlier in the cycle, wonders if the process will be similar with these wolves.

 

Well. Worse comes to worse, it certainly can't  _hurt_  to have wolves on his side.

 

* * *

 

 

For a while, it's just those three wolves.

 

He thinks it must be a week straight of him moving camp, and those three wolves creeping closer and closer to him each night.

 

At the end of his third week out away from the Starblaster, the sandy furred wolf comes close enough to eat out of Magnus's hand without biting his fingers.

 

He considers it a victory when the wolf doesn't flinch back when Magnus curls his hand after to scratch behind its ear.

 

These animals have never seen people, and he's sure as hell going to make their first experiences a good one.

 

It's easier with the silver furred wolves after that, too-- they come close, sit so close their fur is practically brushing against his shoulders when he eats dinner at the beginning of the fourth week.

 

In hindsight, he should have expected the other two wolves to show up eventually.

 

* * *

 

 

Halfway through his fourth week out, instead of the wolves sitting and waiting patiently for him like he expected, or even the playful wrestling like they'd been doing before, there's a large black wolf standing at his bedroll.

 

Magnus is in the defensive immediately -- even if the other wolves had been friendly, he had no way of knowing if this one was too -- but instead of being attacked, the wolf gently grips the bottom of his tunic between its teeth, tugging.

 

He's not tearing, no -- leading. Magnus frowns, but sets down the piece of wood in his hands and allows himself to be led -- allows himself to be taken directly into the cave that these wolves had been living in.

 

And it's  _there_. The light of creation, sitting in the back of the cave that these wolves had been living in for who knows how long.

 

None of the wolves even growl when he goes to take it-- even when he carries it back to his camp, and instead, he realizes the five wolves are following along with him.

 

Well. He was kidding when he said he was going to go out and tame a dog, but... It's definitely a good outcome.

 

* * *

 

 

He prepares to go back to the beach the next day. It doesn't take much packing -- not like he had many things out with him.

 

It takes him a few hours, but he eventually figures out a way to tie the light to his back, carefully harnesses against his spine. The wolves watch in rapt attention as he fashions it together, and that night, Magnus joins in with their howls.

 

He swears he can see them smiling when he does.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes him another week to reach the shore. Even moving by wolf -- the large black wolf had nudged him onto his shoulders when he noticed he was getting tired, at one point -- it was still slow going.

 

Not to mention having to find the Starblaster itself, even on the horizon it was a noticeable silhouette, but it was still a long journey.

 

Five weeks was a long time to be missing. A long time to use to figure out who he was.

 

But as he comes tearing down the beach on the back of a direwolf, four others running on either side of him -- he thinks he has a pretty good idea. He's still that kid who got his ass handed to him saving a dog.

 

And, if he's honest with himself -- he thinks he'll always be that kid. Or at least he  _hopes_  he is.


End file.
